Could YOU ski to the South Pole

That was the challenge that British adventurer Felicity Aston put to women from around the Commonwealth, as she set out to create the most international all-female expedition ever to the Pole. The team would not be experienced explorers but ‘ordinary’ women who wanted to inspire others to follow their dreams or make a change for the better in their lives. She received more than 800 applications. “What is skiing? Asked someone from Ghana!

At the end of 2009 Felicity Aston led the Kaspersky Lab Commonwealth Antarctic Expedition, a multi-national 8-woman team from Ghana, Jamaica, India, New Zealand, Singapore, Brunei Darussalam, Cyprus and the UK who skied more than 900km from the coast of Antarctica to the South Pole. Most of the women were either the first person or the first woman from their country to ski to the South Pole and yet they were not experienced explorers (some had never seen snow before joining the expedition) but ‘ordinary’ women who wanted to inspire others to follow their dreams or make a change for the better in their lives.

Felicity's book tells the story of her experiences putting together and training the team, as well as their remarkable 40-day journey together in Antarctica. ‘Call of the White: Taking the World to the South Pole’ is published by Summersdale and is now available at Amazon: